Re: w3c validator

by "Mark Pinkston" <markpinkston(at)proaxis.com>

Date:	Sun, 6 Jun 1999 05:32:56 -0700
To:	"dVD" <david.demets(at)skynet.be>, <hwg-critique(at)hwg.org>
	todo: View Thread, Original

Hi David,

>I just ran some personal pages
> http://users.skynet.be/sky91494/david/dd/index.html ) through the
merciless
>w3c-validator ( http://validator.w3.org/ ). The result was terrible!
>Is it because of the doctype that I have declared in my pages?

In a word, yes.

>It appears to be wrong...

Yes, it is wrong. From:
http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html32.html

it should be:
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2 Final//EN">

Note the word "Final" that is missing in your code.

>Could you recommend an alternative?

Yes, from:
http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/sgml/loosedtd.html

you should use:
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd">

You will still get some errors, because you are using some proprietary tags,
but this is the current standard.

>Do you think it's *that* necessary for pages to completely validate?
>(They do work on my versions of IE and NS after all. ;-) )


That's entirely up to you. Do you only want your page to work if people
happen to have your versions of IE and NS? If not, I would suggest writing
valid code. The best way I've found to make sure you have valid code is to
use the "merciless" W3C validator.

BTW, adding the "alt" attribute to your <IMG> tags would eliminate some
validation errors, and it would also make your page more accessible. Besides
the HTML validation, you should run your pages through Bobby to check
accessibility:
http://www.cast.org/bobby/

HTH,
Mark
===============================
Are you afraid to vote for a woman President???
Not me: Dole in 2000!!!
===============================
My e-mail - mailto:markpinkston(at)proaxis.com
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